Everything You Need To Know
About Ea-nāṣir

Ea-nāṣir is the recipient of the world’s oldest complaint letter. He’s reportedly the worst businessman of the 18th century, a mediocre conman whose actions should have him put out of business. Is this fair? Here’s a thread on the most up-to-date research on this captivating figure.

Ea-nāṣir, whose name means ‘Ea is the guardian’, lived in the city of Ur during the last decades of the 19th century, ~1813-1804 BCE. For his ruling king Rim-Sîn, this meant being at war. We’re still about 10-20 years out before Hammurabi becomes king of Babylon in 1793 BCE.

At this point in time, the kingdom of Larsa held military and economic dominion over Babylonia, having beaten back a coalition composed of Isin, Babylon, Rapiqum, Sutium, and Uruk, headed by king IR-ne-ne. But this dominion would remain shaky for a decade longer.

The city of Ur was a special place. It held civic features that we can recognize as local traditions, such as allowing temple institutions to be major economic actors, as well as primary land holders. In some ways, this city functioned like a temple-city, rather than a royal one.

This city is also one of the most famous excavated sites in the ancient Near East. We know of earlier periods through elite tombs (such as that of Lady Puabi); in the Old Babylonian Period, we have neighborhoods, streets, homes, and businesses to learn from.

As historians, we learn from archaeological excavation, analysis of material finds, reading textual records, and so on. About a quarter of the texts found at Ur date to Rim-Sîn and of these documents, 26 were found in Ea-nāṣir’s house.

Ea-nāṣir lived at n. 1 Old Street, a modern name completely fabricated by Sir Leonard Woolley (more on Woolley here), the excavator at the time (more on street names here). This home was finely built and stood with an area of 110 m2, an average home in this neighborhood being about 70 m2.

Who was Ea-nāṣir? It’s simply not possible to know someone through 26 documents, so this is the best we can muster: Ea-nāṣir was a landowner; he had obviously his own home, but also purchased both orchard land as well as land needing to be fixed up adjacent to his estate.

Outside of being a landholder, we have twelve letters and twelve economic documents regarding this man. Eleven of the letters are written to him, and also often to a Mr. Ilshu-tillassu (“his god is his support”), who seems to have been a business partner.

Ea-nāṣir was a merchant (tamkārum) and a traveler of Dilmun (ālik Dilmun). This means he traveled from Ur to modern day Bahrain by land and sea. He likely utilized boats similar to that of a 'Magan Boat.'

If the land of Bahrain was once called Dilmun, the land of Oman and the UAE was once called Magan. In the early 2nd millennium BCE (2000-1750), we have evidence of trade all the way from Tell Hariri, Syria (ancient Mari) to Gujarat, India, the center of this trade along the Gulf.

Judging from how these letters paint Ea-nāṣir, it appears that, though he lived in Ur, he travelled regularly to Dilmun where he collected copper for the purpose of dispersal in Babylonia. This copper was certainly from Magan, an area flush with metal.

Long-distance trade on this level is nothing new. These commercial expeditions had investors, too, not unlike modern business ventures. For example, one of Ea-nāṣir’s neighbors loaned out oil and textiles equivalent to two pounds of silver in order to buy copper.

Here two other ālik Dilmun merchants swore to pay back this neighbor of the price of four pounds of copper per eight grams of silver. This neighbor was looking to score a quarter ton of copper (480 lbs). So, this wasn’t low-risk, low-reward trade.

It’s likely that this trade network extended beyond Syria, going way of the Amuq Plain and into Anatolia through the Amanic and Syrian Gates, stretching then toward Cyprus, Greece, and so on. Metals, like today, were a precious resource and were central to urban environments far and wide.

At Ur, it seems that this trade had been originally controlled through the temple of Ningal, who levied taxes upon these imports. But by the time Ea-nāṣir was active, this job had been taken over by the palace, likely Rim-Sîn at Larsa.

Ea-nāṣir was managing this sea trade operation for upwards of 50 investors. In his records is a receipt of one expedition: 18,333 kg (20 tons) of copper is received by an agent. They took 7,377 kg (8 tons), 3/4 of this amounting to Ea-nāṣir’s hibiltum (5,691 kg, or 6 tons).

In comparison, the hibiltum of Nawirum-Ilī (whose name means ‘my god is brilliant’), is only about 433 kg, equivalent to less than 2 pounds of silver. What was this hibiltum? Something like trade loss, likely this copper was already claimed by people like his neighbor.

It wasn’t just copper that was traded between these regions: while Dilmun received sesame oil, textiles, and silver (mentioned above), Ur received pearl, ivory, gold, lapis lazuli, carnelian, chlorite, exotic woods, and kohl.

What were Ea-nāṣir's letters about? Frankly, they were about copper trade. In his letter to Šumum-libši and the zabardabbum, he discusses a legal altercation between the letter correspondents and Kurum and Erissum-matum, so we must assume this trade was risky business.

Many letters concern getting fine copper (werûm dummuqum), others show frustration over receiving lesser quality copper (werûm la damqum). What's the difference?

Thanks to J.G. Dercksen’s 1996 dissertation on Old Assyrian copper trade, we have a good hunch as to what is meant here. While Old Assyrian copper and Old Babylonian copper have differing qualitative language, the copper supply was not very diverse.

Majority copper at this point came from Magan, whereas a number of smaller sites in Anatolia had their own copper supply, too. While fine quality copper was called the same thing (werûm dammuqum), there were a load of differing lesser qualities of copper.

What is most likely meant is werium lammunum, or poor-quality copper, the main determination factor here being concentration of iron impurity. The refinement process of copper wasn’t unknown, but it was an added step in an already lengthy process of procuring the metal.

In sum, Ea-nāṣir was a major deal. He brought tons of copper into Ur for scores of networks. Likely, a number of his investors were not metalsmiths and the finished quality of metal mattered greatly to them. Was he a grifter? No. Was he a business man? Surely.

Where we land with this figure is that Ea-nāṣir was a central node for copper trade as it existed between ancient Oman through ancient Turkey and likely beyond, as well. His work came at a cost because it was highly requested. Not many folks were willing or able to do the work he did!